Good afternoon everyone. I call this meeting of the House Finance Committee to order
Happy Friday. Let the record reflect. It's 1.33 p.m. On Friday the 6th
2026 present today are representative Hannon representative Bynum
representative Thomas chef ski
Representative more representative Galvin representative Jimmy and the three co-chairs co chair fostered cochair shruggy and myself co
chair Josephson
Also present today are House Finance Committee staff, Committee Assistant Helen Phillips,
and Tallulah Lostethka, Secretary Bree Wiley, and Secretary Leah Frazier.
We also have our moderator, Emily Mesh, from the Legislative Information Office.
Before we start today, please mute your cell phones.
In today's hearings, we will hear three departmental budget overviews.
We think we have about 45 minutes per overview, so we'll keep that in mind as questions
come to our attention.
First, we'll hear from the Department of Natural Resources.
With us today from The Department is John Crowder,
Commissioner Designee, and Brent Goodram.
Deputy Commissioner also available online
or division directors.
Many of them, I can tell.
If the two of you will come forward as you are,
put yourselves on the record and begin your presentation.
And I see at least five directors available.
Well, thank you very much,
co-chair Josephson and members of the committee,
John Crother for the record,
Commissioner Designee for The Department,
it's an honor and a privilege to be here.
Excited to share a little bit about our budget quickly.
I know we have just 30 minutes or so,
maybe 45 per department.
We wanna make sure we give time to our other departments
to also present their information.
So just very quickly,
have a lot of budget information to share but of course happy to take
questions, have couple different policy topics, the committee requested
information on after our court budget and then in our appendix we have have
a summary of activities and accomplishments across our different
divisions so ofcourse if there's questions about those happy
to speak to them but want to make the best use of the
committee's time. But that said I'll turn it over to my colleague Gudroom and
we'll start our presentation. All right and we've been joined we
So everyone's here.
Thank you.
Thank You Chair for the record, John Crother again.
My colleagues reminded me I'm not ready to turn it over
just yet because I want to give a little bit of an overview
of our department and what we do.
I know this committee knows quite well the scope of
our work.
But as noted on the slide, our mission is to develop,
conserve, and maximize the use of
our natural resources.
And so we're our state land manager.
So we are responsible really for managing water
minerals, oil and gas resources, and a host of natural resources that make Alaska Alaska.
We take that obligation very seriously.
We have a very diverse and expansive team of professionals in all the technical areas
associated with that, it's a real honor to work with those people because it is an incredible
benefited every day to learn from the breadth of people
we've had working with us.
We have seven divisions and two offices,
so we'll talk a little bit more about some of those
in detail in the following slides,
but those cover everything from our forest,
our parks, our state park system,
our oil and gas, but also have functions
like major project permitting.
So a lot of different things that touch the land
that everyday Alaskans use and access.
Just very quickly I'll share with the committee our major priorities for this coming fiscal year
It's it's no secret that there's a lot of interest in demand internationally for natural resource for energy for commodities for minerals
And we want to make sure that we're
Responding and meeting that demand and also applying the technology and data growth
you know, in our mission to maximize the use of those resources,
part of that is maximizing knowledge about them and sharing that knowledge.
So that's a dynamic we really want to seize and step into in that first bullet here.
The next thing is a personal priority, but I know it's also a priority that shared across
our leadership team is doing as much as we can to support the culture that we have.
We have great staff today. We've been able to retain our
really good folks the last several years, I want to make sure we continue to put a prioritization
on recognizing the work our folks are doing and keeping them at the department.
Finally, a couple things here, our state-hood land entitlement transfers, major part of receiving
our land entitlements from the federal government, we're trying to
make that sure that we, uh, continue receive those, there's some major federal decisions
that may enable big steps there.
Disaster response has been a big part of what the department's been working on, unfortunately.
We have disasters all across our state.
They impact Alaskans and DNR needs to be part
of that response, fold in with our other departments and support Alascans when they're dealing with those terrible situations.
And then finally, a dynamic that we're also trying to lean into is our federal government
is very supportive of efficient permitting and cooperating with the state.
The President's Executive Order focused on Alaska, speaks to some of these things, and
we are trying work as efficiently as we can with a federal Government to seize those opportunities.
So, with all that said in our overview, I'll just go to our next slide very quickly and
let's just question.
proceed. Just very quickly this is our department's organization. You can see
here's these seven divisions and two offices I referenced and seated to my
right here is Deputy Commissioner Brent Goodram who will move into our budget
information. Thank you for the record Deputy commissioner Brent goodram thank
you. For the opportunity to be here today. My high-level operating budget
overview begins here on slide three. Please note that the division of
has been removed from our department presentation as there's a separate department of agriculture
structure provided for in the governor's budget. The table at the top left represents our fiscal
year 25 actuals in a comparison of the FY26 management plan to the FY proposed FY27 governor
fund's category, an increase of approximately 4.3 million, a change of about 24%.
The overall total FY24 governor's budget increased by 2.7% from FY26.
As you will soon learn in the upcoming slides, the vast majority of changes within the department's
budget are attributed to three things.
The number one, the movement of long-standing programs and associated federal authority and matching funds from capital to the operating budget.
Number two, an increase in authority to receive interagency receipts for all hazard disaster response.
And third, implementation of the statewide information technology classification study within the department.
Or the table on the top right, you'll notice a decrease of 30 positions
from the FY26 management plan to the FY27 governor's budget across all position types.
I'll discuss the reason for the position decreases in subsequent slides.
Okay.
Next slide.
Yes.
Let's keep it as tight as possible.
Thank you, Mr. Coacher.
The division of AG has been removed following the Star District under FY27.
But is it removed in the position counts because we're looking at 25
actuals, 26 management, and then 27 governor's proposal?
Have those positions been moved from there also?
Through the Chair, Representative Hannon.
Yes, they account for a decrement of 37 of those position.
There'll be some ads that'll come back that get us to a net negative 30
Okay, thank you
All right, please continue deputy commissioner
Thank you slide four as we look at the FY 27 governor's budget DNR has 18 different funding sources
When you look the green comment box on the right you'll see that the general fund budget includes both unrestricted and designated general funds
totaling approximately one hundred and twenty two million dollars
Unrestricted general funds and designated general
funds comprise 61% of DNR's total operating budget.
Now, looking at the table on the left,
under designated General Funds,
most of our general fund program receipt revenue
is from park fees, right-of-way leases, material sales,
mining leases vehicle rental tax, land sales
timber cell receipts, and recording fees.
Under the other category, most of this category is made up of interagency receipts, statutory designated program receipts
permanent fund receipts capital funds and mental health trust authority.
When you look at the comment box on the bottom right, you'll see that on a 10 year revenue average
for every general fund dollar appropriated to DNR, DMR generates $22 in revenue.
Next slide.
I'll now provide an overview of the proposed FY27 governor's operating budget changes.
Line one, administrative services.
This item transfers four positions from the Department of Administration to DNR for accounts
payable and travel and expense activities.
The funding for these positions remained with DMR during the consolidation of services,
so no funding is associated with these position.
administrative services. This item transitions four positions from Department
of Administration to the Department of Natural Resources for payroll
activities. The funding for these positions also remained with DNR during
the consolidation of services, so no funding is associated with these
positions transitioning back to The Department. Line three, multiple
of the information technology classification study.
This increment will apply to 29 positions within the department.
The total budget for the increment for DNR is 595,000,
spanning various allocations identified on this slide.
Line 4. Exxon Valdez oil spill trustee council projects.
This item removes the Exxon values oil spiel trustee
council project fund authority.
All EVO's projects under this fund have concluded and DLR no longer receives these funds.
So this allocation and authority can be eliminated.
It's a decrement of 175,000 in other.
Okay, let's go to slide seven.
Line 5, Mental Health Trust Lands Office, Facilities Operations and Maintenance.
This item establishes the Trust Land Office Administration budget under the Mental health
trust lands, Facility Operations & Maintenance component to adhere to statute and to document
The structural change identifies the 573.2,000 of mental health trust authority authorized
receipts utilized for this purpose.
Line 6.
Forest management and development.
Good neighbor authority.
This item will create one permanent full-time forest or four position, range 20, located in
Kuchikan, to increase timber cell activity on federal lands in southeast and south central
Alaska. This position will be focused on forest development and admin support through Good
The timing of this position aligns with major federal partnerships.
The Division of Forestry is entering into a 10-year good neighbor authority master agreement
with the US Forest Service and is developing a 30- year shared stewardship agreement,
allowing the state to take a more active role in managing activity within federal force in Alaska.
This increment is for a total of 160,000 in federal authority.
Line 7.
geological and geophysical surveys maintain critical minerals mapping, earth
mapping resources initiative, or earth MRI. This grant from the US Geological
Survey funds mapping of critical mineral resources. The data will help industry
explore for critical, minerals, and base minerals and metals and benefit all
sectors of Alaska's mining industry.
This funding has historically been addressed through the capital budget, but is a core funding mechanism for the division and an ongoing program.
So it's now reflected in the operating budget.
This provides an increment of 5.8 million in federal funds.
No state match is requested in fiscal year 27.
Next slide.
This item is to increase interagency receipt authority for the Division of Forestry and Fire Protection under the Fire Suppression Preparedness component.
It expands inter agency authority to collect revenue from other state agencies through reimbursable service agreements,
which will further enable the division to provide all hazard support outside of the fire season.
Leveraging emergency response expertise of existing state employees aims to improve operational efficiency and save costs.
This request is for 1.5 million other.
Line 9, Fire Suppression Preparedness.
This item transfers two positions and associated funding from the Division of Forestry and Fire Protection to the Department of Agriculture.
approximately $193,000 in authority.
Line 10, agricultural development.
Under executive order 137, this item transfers positions and associated funding to the Department
of Agriculture.
Total transfer is about $5.8 million in 17 permanent full-time positions.
Yes, Representative Bynum.
Specifically with this item with the creation of going from a division to a department are there specific?
The specific cost associated with that change
Through the chair representative buying them
what the governor's budget does is it moves the
Structure and the funding associated by the current division and moves it into a brand new department
Additionally, just the previous line I had noted, it also moves two positions and funding
associated with those positions also to that department.
And so that is the structure both in personnel and in funding that will be available for
the department
Follow-up?
Represent Binance.
So through the chair, I understand there's going to be a shift of the resources into
from the division but what I'm trying to get at is are there any specific direct
cost with the change and the reason why I am asking is that I full-heartedly I
support I supported and support the development of a of the department for
Lingering questions about this particular item and I'm just trying to get a better understanding if if there's a real cost to creating the chain
Or if this real cross cost through the change mean going from a division to the department
I am not talking about just transfer resources, but
Actual costs to make the changes will there be then be cost potentially if we have to unwind this and so I just try to understand
What those costs might be deputy commissioner
Through the chair representing a bynum
To date in the governor's budget, I mean, these are the monies that are being allocated to support that move all the work thus far that's been involved.
And it's a decent amount of work has been absorbed by those agencies to include DNR
that have undertaken the word to do all of the preparatory things that need to happen in order to create a new department.
Thank you.
Deputy Commissioner, if the, it, as I noted to the press this morning, we've litigated
over this, and so it wouldn't, I think, come as a huge surprise that some legislators
want to restore these services to your agency.
If they came back to you agency, would you still want these as fire suppression preparedness
Because these are PCNs that are no longer designed for fire suppression workers. Is that right?
Through the chair
chair of Josephson
Obviously the division of AG positions
Still are servicing the the AG community
The positions that were identified associated with wildland fire
We we still have those needs
Given where we're at now, we've prioritized them for the development and creation of the new department
And so if the department were to go forward
That's what they would be made available for if it weren't to. Go forward
We could definitely put them to use
Rest in the hand and you ask me let's go to slide nine
Line 11
North latitude plant material center
As with the previous item under executive order 137, this item transfers positions an associated funding authority to the Department of Agriculture.
The total amount to be transferred is approximately 3.9 million and
15 permanent full-time positions and five permanent part- time positions.
Line 12, history and archeology.
This request is for the Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation's National Historic Preservation Fund Grant,
which is a core funding mechanism for The Office of History and Archaeology.
This is 4060 state federal split.
This grant supports Section 106 reviews, which are required for any construction projects with a federal nexus,
which includes any federal funding for roads, bridges, airports, and etc.
This request is for 1.3 million general fund match in 2 million federal receipt authority for a total of 3.2 million dollars.
Ripson Galvin.
Thank you, Coach Josephson, through the chair.
I'm back to the Ag Department work.
I've asked this question previously to a previous commissioner and I think in
But the answer was very clear that if we did not have this transition, the work would still
happen.
The ag work could still happen within the department of natural resources.
So I guess I'm reconfirming that with the new change of folks here.
That if I know that there's still uncertainty about what's going to happen with that, and
And if, I think I see two new positions potentially shifting over to ag work, and if that's the case, then what would the new work be?
Deputy Commissioner.
Through the chair, Representative Galvin, yes, the state of Alaska will continue to support the agriculture industry in Alaska.
You know, full stop, that is a responsibility that we have.
The two positions that are intended to move that
are currently not within the division of AG would be repurposed.
One of the positions would become an accountant for, and
I believe the other one would became an account and two that
are necessary for some of functions of a new department associated with
administration and budget work that they would need to do.
They won't be able to all that work.
Quite likely, we in the Department of Natural Resources would continue to provide some services as that department got stood up.
But they would be repurposed for other, they'd be reclassified as the right term into other positions that had been described last year.
Follow up?
Yes.
So just to recap what I understand is that what it heard was yes, the work will continue either way and
When we make this swap, we're also adding in more admin to make sure that they work in within a new department is being supported
Is that through the chair representative Galvin? Yes, those would be two of the positions that would
Be reclassified. Thank you. Let's go to slide ten represent by them. Thanks. You coach your justice in and
Through the chair really quick, so we're talking about what we want to do here in the 27 budget and as far as allocating these positions where they're being moved
Currently as we speak and I just don't recall so this is why I'm asking
It's my understanding that the that that department of
Ag has already been stood up and is functioning is that not accurate?
Through, the, chair representative bynum
It has not stood, up
Thank you. So is it follow-up?
Quick follow up.
So you're still performing these responsibilities under 26
And the anticipation is in that for 27 you would make them make that change
Through the chair representative item that is correct. Thank You
Represent staff. Yeah, really quick through the Chair to
Dean our folks
Obviously the rub here is the Department of Ag I think if somebody were to say move those transfer positions to
The division of agriculture would you still be able to use utilize them for the purpose through the chair?
Deputy Commissioner Goodroom
Through the Chair
representative staff
The reason that we were moving those is because we knew that there is some
additional work that is unique to a department that
The current division doesn't have.
I believe if it were still a division that somehow, you know,
remained within, that rightly remained
within the division, or Department of Natural Resources,
that we do have incredible need and use for those positions
within The Division of Forestry and Fire Protection if,
if the new department wasn't created.
All right, Deputy Commissioner Goodham again for the record.
We were asked about a couple of questions regarding changes from what the governor had put forward in his FY26 budget last year.
The first item has to do with, it was a request for
two positions for broadband in order to help process some of those easements.
And there was question about how the department is handling those.
What we've done within the Division of Mining Land and Water, and we prioritized broadband
applications because we know that they are incredibly important to communities, there's
a timeline associated with money that's available for them, so we have essentially prioritised
those applications as they come through the door and work them as quickly as we can.
We're doing everything we could to minimise effects to other projects, but that is what
to help fill that gap.
The second item there, the department last year,
requested 4.376, 437,000 in UGF to replace anticipated
expiring federal money or CIP, and was actually authorized
We applied those monies to the GIS analyst and
three equipment operator positions, that 218,000 currently we're still managing with the four foresters on federal authority.
There's some uncertainty perhaps about that in the future, but
we are making due with money that was appropriated by the legislature last year in that situation.
Okay.
Real quick, there were a couple of topics that I think were asked of us to touch base on.
The department is working to implement the governor's goals to drive more economic activity
from the timber resources into more actively managed forests for health and regeneration.
Good forest management helps provide better access, which benefits forest health than
It also enhances wildlife habitat and expands recreational opportunities for all Alaskans.
The division continues to work to improve and accelerate timber sales statewide
and is working on other mechanisms to get more timber into productive use
such as the good neighbor authority as it was mentioned earlier
and the recently passed lumber grading program
which puts more local timber to use in local communities.
This year we've got a couple legislative items that are before the legislature.
One is, would increase the size of the Tannenall Valley State Forest.
That's House Bill 218 and Senate Bill,
Companion Bill 118, or excuse me, 188, as well as a bill that would enable timber management leases.
And that's, House bill 72 on this side, and senate bill 75 on the other.
Slide 12
Lastly, there was a some interest here in southeast the department is currently engaged in a public process
revising the Hanes state forest resource management area plan
That was required on the Senate bill 48, which was the carbon offset bill
What we're seeking to do is to allow but not require
Harvest in more areas within the Haynes State Forest. We want to ensure that silviculture treatments as a tool to meet habitat and recreation management management objectives is a possibility.
Updates to the plan, as we said, were required by a previous legislation.
We've had over eight public and stakeholder meetings to date and that planning opportunity continues today. There's a link there that.
provides more information to the public and how they can participate in that effort.
How, so in bullet two it says that there could be an allowance for more harvest, but in Bullet 4
it talks about carbon offset of the same forest. So
Can you can you explain that? Through the chair?
To the Chair, Representative Josephson
The current management plan currently prohibits timber activity within certain classified areas for
habitat or recreation, although there are benefits.
If you go and you do certain work within a habitat area, it may generate other type of
by the folks that are managing the wildlife.
Same thing for recreation.
If you take certain silviculture practices
and create additional access,
you can create great opportunities for recreations.
And so currently there's areas that prohibit
timber related activity.
We're looking at what can be done,
where those areas might be appropriate
for those activities.
Have we generated any revenue at all yet from the carbon offset bill?
Sure, Chair Justice and John Crowther for the record. We'll speak to that in a little bit more detail in the next slide
But we have have not initiated projects just yet. Okay, representative Hannon
We're on the same vibe this time and I was gonna ask
How close are we?
My recollection, co-chair, was we needed to have the forester
and have an inventory before we could offer up for sale
and say we've got 10 years of growth to manage.
I can't remember how it was all measured.
So how close were we to being able to offer
up some sequestration opportunities?
Chair or representative Hannon through the chair John Kruehler again for the record if it's all right
I'll progress to our next slide here slide 13 and
Talk briefly to just that question slide
So for our offset program, which is I think what you're referencing, representative, our regulations were stood up in 2024 shortly after passage.
We did engage a contractor to assess us with just answering those kind of questions.
How much inventory do we need?
If we have what we know already, how does the project get scoped up?
The market has been dramatically changing in the late 2024-2025 timeframe for the IFM,
the improved forest management projects, and those are where you are assessing timber harvest
create credits. Because of the changes in that market, we've had a difficult time, I think
it's fair to say, identifying the best place to start with our projects. We're working
with the registries, some of whom have changed their standards, to try and explain and understand
what's going on in Alaska. But that's caused a little bit longer timeframe to ramp up those.
before station improved efforts to address beetle kill,
burned areas, and potentially generate credits that way.
We received a lot of information at the department.
And so we're working on what our next steps
for those kind of projects may be,
but we don't have anything under development today.
One follow-up?
Yes, follow up.
Representative Hannon.
Thank you, co-chair Josephson.
So.
anticipating, if this does not pan out because that market has changed, how long
do we keep the forester that we brought on to develop this project in that
position before we shift them back into doing fire suppression work or other
forestry things? Mr. Representative Hannon, through the chair, I, John Crow there for
you know from the department's perspective these folks are working on
understanding inventory activity levels the the information about the force and
that's relevant to the full life cycle of our management so it it's not so much
that we have a member of R4's team doing carbon projects and nothing else and a
member doing you no prevention and anything else so I think we're we feel
we are putting the foresters that have been working in this project working
It's net beneficial to our core mission of the division.
So I don't think we anticipate a personal staffing change
associated with the, we've had these challenges,
but we're going to keep working through them.
Commissioner, did we designate either the carbon capture
or the Carbon Offset program dollars?
Were they just to feed into the general fund
or were they purposed?
Sure, Josephson. Let me look to my colleague. I
believe I
Believe the answer that but we'll confirm for the committee is that the
The carbon sequestration revenue was treated as the use of a resource
Potentially and into the permanent fund and associated with other roads
You know in the same manner that other road you receipts are allocated
But into The General Fund as well and I have to get back to the committee definitively on how the carbon offset if there was any special designations there
Represent Calvin
Thank You coach. Justice and through the chair. I think that's maybe a
Question for Commissioner Crowther. It's around the Carbon capture utilization and storage
Again, this is an area that some of us were interested in,
especially around revenue opportunity.
And I see that AOGCC has issued draft regs for a program.
And what I'm not seeing is a sense of the timing
and if there has been issued, do we have rates then out
on the market, are we getting revenue from that piece yet?
Commissioner, thank you representative Galvin through the chair
I was just speaking to our offset program the trees bills and as you're referencing
I'm asking an entirely different question mine is now around the storage
injection of carbon
Into our good rocks and at the time we were told hey there may be a way for us to make money because
It's helpful for companies to be able to inject
into our rocks and so I know some of our some an industry we're looking forward
to that opportunity in different spaces. We're already doing it I think in
Cook and Lent and things like that. So there I'm asking about that top portion
of the carbon storage and also if there's anything else happening in the rocks I
know that we are doing lots of different things with carbon and I don't know if
report back yet on that part.
Commissioner.
Yeah.
Representative Galvin, through the chair.
Thank you for the question.
Yes.
On the first set of bullets there, the CCUS-related activities utilizing underground pore space.
We have, as you referenced, our Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commissions at the final
stages of regulations for The Class VI Program.
That would then lead to their work with the US Environmental Protection Agency to gain
That's a key part of permitting wells for those projects.
But we have the authorities granted by the legislature to do leases.
We have not entered into one of those leases or licenses yet,
but we are aware that there's work in Cook Inlet to assess.
potential projects and then there's also work on the North Slope.
One of the things that the department did do last year is we kind of amalgamated the
data that we have and that's referenced in the bullet, the second bullet referencing
the hub site.
So we compiled our geologic information, land ownership information to help make people
looking, make it a little easier for folks looking for project information as they plan
those.
So, we have not generated revenue yet.
Follow-up quickly.
So I understand that there's been some, you still have yet to be able to figure out how
to evaluate when industry is putting it in in order to keep their well maintained versus
putting in an order distort and put it out of the way.
And I appreciate that.
And there was some I think in our legislation that was passed, it gives the Commissioner
to work this through and work it out.
And it was, I think at least a year ago.
And so as soon as you can give us that information,
I'm looking forward to hearing about more revenue.
And, so I would appreciate kind of hearing
where we are on the map when we have developed that material,
especially when developed our rates.
Representative Stapp.
Thank you, Chair Justin, through the Chair
to the Acting Commissioner.
My grandmother always told me that money doesn't grow on trees and I know that many
of us were hopeful that probably wasn't the case and
I knew that there's a lot of technical issues with the offset program and that you have
a contractor working through those.
But I am curious if there is any type of future timeline that
you out in the future that could potentially give us some sort of definitive answer.
Regarding whether or not that's capable of monetization and that could be maybe 28 29 even up by 30 just so we know
How to keep a prize to the chair commissioner
Thank you representative step through the Chair
I believe we do intend to try and take the next step on those
Reforestation projects this year at some point once we have fully reviewed the information that we received in the RFI and once
we
Continue to kind of consult with the market and experts on that. So I think we intend to start that process this year
That would likely see a year or two of work to stand up and proceed through those assessments
So we are hoping to potentially see projects as soon as 28 or 29 under our current understanding
Thanks. Thank you. Well, I
commend to the members
the appendices which are very
substantive. They're broken down by 2025, 2025 accomplishments, 27 priorities.
We thank you for including that. And I'm reminded that this is the department that has been
called the engine room, the State of Alaska. I don't know if you've heard that, but I
think that's complementary.
I know it to be.
And an important department for sure. Any final questions for either official?
Thank you for your presentation. Thank You chair, so we're going to take 60 seconds and then take up
DEC I believe
Yes DC where it is
All right, we're back on record in on Friday, February 6th in
The house finance committee room the Al Adams room 215 p.m
All members are here or have been here and we are going to take up the second department budget overview
That's from the Department of Environmental Conservation with us is
Commissioner Randy Bates and his ASD administrative services director Megan Kohler
They have a presentation so that all members have some sense of what's going on there and can ask questions.
Please put yourselves on the record and begin your presentation.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Chair, co-chairs, members of this committee, good afternoon.
My name is Randy Bates, I'm the Commissioner Designee for the Department of Environmental Conservation.
It is a privilege to be in a position such as this and it is certainly a pleasure to
be here with you today.
With me at the table, as you mentioned, Mr. Chair, is Meg Kohler.
She is our Director of Administrative Services at Division.
In the audience, in support,
is Crystal Keeneman, Deputy Commissioner for the Department.
Reese Williams, our Special Assistant,
Legley Azone, and Cassie Griffin,
who is Our Budget Manager, Guru.
I would note that you run a tight ship.
You have two large departments.
sandwich in us and I was going to work with you to make up lost time if you needed but apparently
happy to take the 40 minutes if necessary. Thank you for this opportunity to share
our budget today for the fiscal year 2027 and to address any questions you may have about that
budget and how our department is currently running. I have been with the state of Alaska for about
environmental conservation. I understand and appreciate the legislative budget process and how you
work through departments to arrive at informed decisions.
I value that and I appreciate that. And I'm pleased to be part of this.
I am committed to ensuring that we are responsive to the questions you have,
both in this committee and following, and make sure that you
have the information you request so that
you can deliberate and
make that informed decision on our department.
Mr. Chairman where there may be a number of questions from this committee that relate to our vacancy factor staff morale
Staff turnover I've heard those in other committees
I know that there's interest in commercial passenger vessels and ocean rangers
I Know that. There's interests in the spill prevention and response response funds
And our response to the typhoon how long and how we approach that and the funding that might be
Expended there. There are a number of other issues that I'm sure the members have interest in
The slide deck that we have is fairly simple fairly short. We're happy to walk through that with you and share our detail
or at your
Discretion we can just jump straight into questions mr. Chair the briefest of overview remarks
I'll follow your direction on what you would like us to do. So first of all, that's very nice. I don't get that from everyone
I find that I think can be may agree that
If we march march through these they'll prompt some thinking on our part, so we'll do it in a typical way
Mr. Sure. Thank you. Yeah with the slide, too. Yep
And I will turn this over to director Kohler to walk through. Oh, do you
As the last agency reminded me, I'm not done yet.
Our mission is fairly simple and certainly lofty.
You can read it, conserve it and improve it
in protecting Alaska's natural resources
and our environment to enhance health, safety
and economic and social well-being of Alaskans.
That is lofty and aspirational, but it's one we meet.
In just the second slide away,
I'll give you exactly what that means to me
and how I would explain it to you in an elevator
if I had 30 seconds.
Right now we are we have a full complement of commissioner's office and director staff. This is outstanding and we
have experienced knowledge depth both
In our director staff, as well as the group that supports us, we have Sam Dapzovich as our public information officer coming over from DOT.
Reese Williams is an experienced legislative liaison, Crystal Keeneman is probably familiar to a number of you, our deputy commissioner.
Meg is our division of administration.
Jason Olds is incredibly smart, incredibly brilliant in air quality,
spar spill prevention in response with Theresa Melville,
again long-term employee at DEC,
and Gene McCabe also 15 plus years at DC in the Division of Water,
where I used to be the Director of a very challenging position.
Commissioner, we have a question from Representative Hannon.
Thank you, Coach or Josephson, and I'm glad you call that Sam Dapsovich
Did the snowpocalypse break him because my recollection he was still doing the announcements for roads are closed
With us in December. So did he just move the first of the year or was I just putting his name on all those announcements as we went through the December hell
Through the chair representative and we are we're
So fortunate to have gotten Sam's support over at DEC.
He was a long-term employee at DOT as a PIO there.
His history, my goodness, 5th generation Alaskan
with ties here in Southeast that go very, very deep.
If he was supporting Commissioner Anderson.
During his tenure with DEC, great, good for him.
I'm sure we needed it as a state to be able to explain
what was happening to our roads and systems here.
Also importantly, he was, I know that he
was working on behalf of DEC posting information
about the avalanches and how to manage the home heating
oil spills and to how be safe.
So, double duty if that's what it is,
but I am certainly supportive of it.
Okay.
All right, let's go to slide four.
This is a lot of words, but I'm going to break it down for you like this
bad BEDD
Our department has a lotta functions that that come to life in everyday worlds for all of our residents
If you breathe if you eat if You drink or if your discharge
whether you're a body or a building our department has a role in your world and that's
More articulately explained here in the in The graph or the chart, but bed is
We touch everybody's lives in one way or another here, in Alaska
Okay
Slide five slide five with that. I'll let Meg walk us through some of the budget aspects
Thank you, sir.
Good afternoon for the record.
My name is Megan Kohler.
I'm the Administrative Services Director
for The Department of Environmental Conservation.
And I'll do a brief overview of our budget.
But first, before we look at fiscal year 27,
take a look back at Fiscal Year 26.
We had four items that moved forward,
two of which I would consider technical changes.
One, item number one was a not additional funding.
It was additional receipt authority
to make sure that we were aligning
with our facilities, leased and owned spaces,
having that ability to.
congregate those in one spot for reporting as well as item number three which was also
aligning receipt authority. Item two and four are related to our environmental health lab that is
the only state-owned building for DEC and this is both to keep our maintenance and operations
Moving on to the next slide, perfect, looking forward again you'll see a fairly boring budget
with mostly what I would consider technical changes.
The budget increases for the department or associated with the IT classification study
The other items here are largely aligning and finding efficiencies in our organization, financial organization.
Let me ask you, my committee is suddenly getting shy on me.
But let me asked you on slide five, row three.
What's going on there where it says you want to align receipt authority, but there's no budget impact?
Correct that was
Retiring interagency receipts that we no longer utilized and increasing our GFPR and our sorry our general fund program receipts
and
Reducing some of our other
SDPR our statutory designated program recedes
Okay
Since I've got your attention one of the things that I think is going to be important for the committee and that
I need to know
relates to the typhoon for sure and so I know that your department was very
involved certainly DMVA and what I'm trying to get a handle on and I
know it's dynamic it some moving target and we're under appeal with FEMA on one
portion of it but I'd like to give a sense of what your contribution was
to the pie that was the response.
Was it 5% and where those dollars from the,
the Response Fund, what was response fund?
That's the 50 million dollar fund, right?
Up to 50 millions dollars.
Was, was it at X dollars and now it's down
because you use some of that?
I just don't have a handle on that.
So, one is just purely financial and the budget impacts of the typhoon.
And then second, related to the typhoon, is what, and it could be that Rep. Jimmy has
visited these sites, but having lived in a village in that region myself, everyone has,
or nearly everyone, has at least a 55-gallon drum.
I assume most of those just filled with the ground, many of them spilled.
I'm trying to get a sense of what the plan is in D.C.'s eyes to either abandon or restore or
that moving forward. So one is current financial impact to your department. One is future plans
Mr. Chair, thank you for the question and I'm going to ask Director Kohler to address
the financial set.
I'll tell you this.
I just spent the week up in Anchorage with a number of our fellow residents, many of
which were impacted in Kipnik Quig, other areas.
I will respond to what we're going to be doing for the future, and I'm looking forward to
that with you.
We can touch on it here, happy to come back at any time either in committee or in your
offices and talk about what did well, what could improve upon and how we are approaching
both this clean up and what expect to the next significant issue.
We'll touch the budget piece and then I'll follow up with our path forward.
Thank you for the record Meg Kohler and through the to the chair and
the
We did open the response fund
In when this disaster occurred, but we are working with DHS EM
Who is working? With FEMA for recouping those costs related as to The Department?
I believe omb provided initial numbers of a hundred thousand dollars. We know that DEC's responses were collecting
Those those dollars and setting up those reimbursable service agreements with DHS EM is going to be much larger than that
And we're still calculating those exact numbers to pull together as we work through
Setting up agreements, but we used a significant amount of money
The portion from the response fund will go back to the Response Fund
If the committee could get
current dollars, so we know
What you've expended what you expect to get back as as recouped dollars
That would be helpful. It's just a starting-off point
Yes to the chair, of course, we were more than happy to provide those along recognizing that the
as you alluded to the FEMA and DHSEM piece as far as allowable expenses piece will also be a
little bit of a moving target but happy to get you those numbers as they stand right now and moving
forward. All right. Good. And yeah, I'd love to
get more in depth on the impact of the storm on your agency and then secondarily is what's the
There's going to be a lot of, the press is reporting,
there's gonna be lot work starting,
I'm guessing, in April or May or something like that.
If there are, if there were 300 homes in a village,
did 200 of them have collapsed a fuel oil drums?
Did, what's their left to do?
And what is the environmental impact?
to soils and water, can you give us a sense of that?
Sure, I'll take this, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the question.
And this is a critically important issue for us
as well as yourselves to understand this too.
So thank you, for asking the questions.
I will say Representative Jimmy,
I hopefully recognize my voice,
we're on the phone a couple times
in the communications that we had trying to be as public
and sharing as we could on a good work
that were doing.
the DEC, I couldn't be prouder of the work we did as a department and the staff and how
they stood up, stepped forward and stood out in the
work that we
did. Within hours, we had prepared knowing typhoon was going to hit.
We were aware and waiting as the rescue operations were going on and as soon as it was appropriate, we engaged in both recovery, response and we continue in the reentry portion.
So again, if you go back to the bed concept of what we do,
immediately assessing impacts to the clean water systems,
the drinking water system, the landfills,
the erosion that might be affecting the landfill,
the spills that you're talking about,
houses either that got moved off their foundation
and their dog houses,
the flush tank haul systems that hold the waste,
those were washed off, their supports,
the home heating oil tanks were tipped over.
mass devastation. I don't know how else to say it. It's just, it's
just mother nature is very powerful and sometimes unfair. That was bumper
cars with houses. And so there were very few plumbing connections or heating all
connections that were still intact. Things were moved. So we do have an
issue in Kipnik and Quig and all of our communities that experience that type of
heating oil on the ground
We got out and we did as much as we could in that short period of time before freeze up
We were facing a winter clock that was very difficult and
We worked closely with our partners
Many of which we we formed incredible alliances within a short time
To be as responsive as you could and that's short a period time. We did free up
the fund as We said
and we also mobilize staff.
I put out an email to all of our staff and said,
all hands on deck, I need anybody that can,
should and will get out in the field so long
as the community wants us to help do this assessment,
to figure out what the impacts are
and make sure that we have a game plan going forward
so that, we can get these facilities set back up
for the communities and the residents.
Communities operate when they have
Drinking water and a school for the kids to go to and we were just those were high priorities for us to get set up as soon as as
Soon as we could
It did it didn't take long for it to freeze up hard out there. We we're out. They're I
Think the last time I was out There and in maybe in the bus kayak. It was it was getting into the 20s and
People still don't wear coats at that temperature,
but it was starting to freeze up,
and that was early November.
And that...
set the stage of de-mobilization for a little while.
There's not a lot more work we could do
during that winter time frame.
We have a lotta work comin' up, as you mentioned,
Chair, starting with thawing and breakup.
So we're gonna be back out there in April, May, June.
This is not two or three month window.
We're lookin at long term recovery
and clean up in these areas out here.
We did pre-stage a lot of gear out there to the extent we could so we know we have absorbent pads and booms and
Materials for our staff and and those other individuals are going to help us so
We have a lotta pre staged material that's going
To assist us we've already located that so once we do get that window of time and opportunity to get out
There we're ready to go out and get back on the cleanup effort
So it is not going be done in June though. I can tell you that
All right questions on this topic represent Jimmy. It's just more of a big thank you
Commissioner Bates for
Quick action that you guys took out for the rural area in our district and I'm very humbled and
Very thankful for your help. We are not checking a book
Okay, should we move to slide six?
So, on slide six, again, this is budget increments will be seen related to the IT classification
study as well as salary.
The other items are net zeros or zero items going forward.
On our next slide, we'll look at the department overview, and then we will have additional
As we have in previous years, we do, you'll see throughout the presentation we continue
to identify infrastructure investment and job act funding on top of the traditional funding
in the graph.
So what you will see in this, again, I feel a little bit like a broken record, are salary
adjustments and IT class studies.
This does have the Spar-Aquis film forming foam, a triple F disposal reimbursement program is a multi-year item.
And it shows here in FY27 as a reversal of the 2.5 million.
This is an artifact of the accounting.
It does not mean the funding is gone in FY 27.
The balance remaining from FY 26
that they're actively working with communities
and individuals on will be carried forward
to be used in FY 27 and so you'll see it again next year.
But that is what makes the total percent difference
look to 1.1, so.
And you'll see that in more detail in the sparse in this bill prevention and response division slide
So the firefighting foam
The triple-a issue is in what item here on the left what spending so that will that's the
negative 6.1 in ugia
I see okay
Yes represent Hanan
Thank you coach here. On that point on that dollar amount. How much has been expended on?
through the chair rep as of just a few days ago we know that we've had 11
payouts and there's roughly 2.2 million dollars remaining so 300,000.
One follow-up? Yes follow up. And when you say 11 pay outs does that mean 11
That is accurate and that is their prior they are working through applications
quickly
Thank you. All right, let's go to the divisions
And starting with the division of administration this is my division
And it's funded at the appropriation level in proportion to how the rest of the department pays for personal services.
This allows us to spread department overhead costs to non-general funds sources.
The increment here is related to the IT class study and salary adjustments.
The shifting percentages that you'll see in the differences reflect the alignment of our fiscal year 27 federally approved indirect cost rate.
And that's approved by EPA, which allows us as division's personal services cost shift
between funding sources, the administrative services costs also shift.
Slide 9.
This is the Division of Environmental Health.
You'll see an asterisk at the bottom of the slide that says this includes the facility's
operations and maintenance state-owned FOMZO for folks may remember that this used to
be a standalone RDU for our environmental health lab, which is located in Anchorage.
And so because of, the administration of this building, and the folks who work in this
are all part of the division of environmental health.
We moved the cost, which was a fairly small
for the maintenance and operations of building,
into the larger RDU for division
of Environmental Health.
What you'll see here is to make, for clarity,
we combine the two components in the bar chart
for prior year data, so that the total growth
or the Total Change would be easier to visualize.
Okay.
All right.
Slide 10.
And this is for the division of air quality.
This slide reflects and the increases reflect salary adjustments.
Slide 11.
All right, moving on to spill prevention and response.
This is, again, I mentioned this slide that looks in the very technical term, a little
funky.
And this is related to the reversal of one time, the multi-year P, A triple F. Again,
this increments reflect salary and IT.
through the chair.
I can't speak directly to the specifics
of spill prevention and response.
As a department, we are standing at 6.7%.
Mr. Chair, yes, Commissioner, thank you.
It depends on how you measure vacancy,
but I do believe that SPAR is exceptionally low,
right around 4%.
The rest of the department as a snapshot
is that as Director Kohler said about 6,7%
Which has got to be one of the lower in the government, right? Thank you for that
All right division of water
For the record this is the vision of Water again salary and IT study
I will also note that there is in The language section. There is a carry forward language for our general fund program receipts
This is related to as we are looking
forward at kind of forecasting and making sure that we have an efficient
and sustainable. One of the items we noticed is that our program receipts are
fees associated with some construction projects we expect to adjust and this
allows us to move carry fees forward if needed.
I do look forward to the numbers on the
whole long response. Your investment in costs and
anticipated expenses. And plus any areas where you think
you're shorted and it has lasting impact on your budget,
sort of those sorts of questions, if I could.
Just represent valor and then I have a meeting that I change a command thing
I had to go to at three so I don't think you're gonna answer these but I want to bring them up to you so that maybe you could prepare
I'm gonna have lot of questions, and it's probably gonna. Have to be off somewhere else
Matzo home builders got a lot upset people out there with the DEC
septic tanks
And I think the topic is got lot up set people engineers
Something when septic tanks that they would, if there's a problem with their septic tank, the DEC was required in them.
I think it was from one of your gals up in Fairbanks, one your director's up there.
I'm not going to put a name on the record just now, that if the sepptic tank needs to be fixed,
that DEC is requiring that you have to rip the entire septych tank out, which costs about 35,000 to 50,00.
And replace it with the whole new sePTic Tank.
Very concerning, engineers are blowing up my phone over it.
I know, you probably know exactly where I'm going.
Yeah, thank you, Chair.
So you're just briefing them on a later conversation you want to have?
Well, yeah, I mean, chair, are you guys going to be back in front of us for anything in the future?
Through the chair.
Except represent valor.
I am certain that I will look,
I I have up for confirmation, so.
No, we know.
We know you
So I really wanted someone with 26 years experience and not 25, but you know, I
Recognize soon soon confirm me and I'll get there for you, sir
So answer my questions, and i might confirm you
I mean, i'll i''ll earn that I''l earn, that support, okay, hope so i will also say this through the chair representative
We have met most recently we met with with matzu home builders
and I think seven or eight engineers on the phone,
many of which had 30 and 40 years of experience in this field.
So the very people that are blowing your phone up,
I met with to talk about these very issues.
We are looking to solve these issues with them
and find the path forward that works for Alaskans.
It can't be illogical regulation.
In fact,
It's another question you can ask me at some point. I'm just planting seeds here
But what are you doing under administrative order 360? I would love to talk to you about that because this is exactly the type of
cleanup of regulation that the engagement of the public that
Amendment to make it workable for Alaskans while we do not lose environmental protections that we are
obligated to employ
This is the issues that Matt sue
Real estate agents most recently and the home builders have brought up are the issues that we're trying to solve good
Look for either a committee or in your office. However, it goes or during confirmation
And and chair as a courtesy anything that I get from DC. I will gladly share with everybody and I'm sure he's fine with that
So he can get confirmed
Thank you
Sure, I'd love to hear about what's going on in that suit you bet represent by them
Thank you, Coach, your justice center through the chair.
Thank for being here today.
Today we did a high level about the budget and impacts
to your department.
Representative Allen brought up a good question really
about how we're implementing regulations
throughout the state.
Being in southeast is your where the regulations from your
department and from the Department of EPA, federally,
have massive impacts on our communities.
specifically, I'll say catch, can, and wrangle, or dealing with massive issues with regulatory
issues, with wastewater. And it's in the tunes of tens of millions of dollars on our communities.
And so I was wondering what your thoughts might be with the changes in federal administration
and their desire to streamline and look at
Look at the EPA and how their regulatory rules are impacting
Alaska specifically you guys and then you'd mention the order 360
The governor had come out and say hey, we're gonna we want to reduce regulations. We want try to make things a little more efficient
So I'm just wondering how both of those things
will ultimately impact your department budget and
Then cascade down to a positively impact our communities
Thank you, mr. Chair
Through through mister chair to represent a bottom. Thank You for the question. That's certainly a couple
loaded questions that could take some time but they're very important to us.
The issue you're raising about Ketchikan, Rangel, Petersburg, Sitka, Whittier, some others,
that's related to the EPA's 301-H waiver process for wastewater discharge,
which allows those communities to discharge at a lesser treatment level
than anybody else, like Juneau or others that have secondary treatment.
We're well along the path there with those communities.
I recognize that some of the treatment that will be required
to achieve compliance is resulting in some plant
or facility changes and we've been working closely
with these communities to find avenues of low interest loans
through our SRF program or congressional directed spending
to the extent we can do that.
So there's room to operate and work with the communities
I will give you another example that's a little north of our southeast here.
Most recently, Fairbanks non-attainment area has been in the news and for the right reasons.
There were some significant challenges with the way the rules were being implemented.
to us and on us, and we pushed back hard against EPA
and have been for a long time.
Fairbanks is a North Pole,
are in a non-attainment area for air quality.
And we have to do something to clean that air up.
The approach that EPA at that time had taken
would have be exceptionally impactful
and financially expensive to the residents
and the facilities operating up there
$250 million in fuel costs that would have been passed on to the ratepayers, putting in
jeopardy $60 million dollars in federal highway funds for DOT and other projects. So we pushed
back for a long time and it wasn't until this federal administration came in and the former
commissioner here took on the Region 10 position as Regional Administrator Region
talked through these issues and found resolution that I think is just going to be wonderful
for Fairbanks. So we've got some things in the works. Fairbank's is inattainment. North
Pole is near attainment. Those are exceptionally good results and they haven't impacted the
Wood-burning habits to the extent that it's impacting the air,
but we want to help them do that in a way that they want
to do it too.
So we have programs that we're going to come up with.
We got a tag program that's going
to have millions available to facilitate
that type of support, but probably have enough to talk
about on these particular issues that
we could cover some ground.
But Fairbanks is a big issue.
in our relationship with EPA, 301H waivers is another one.
We still have the AWU facility, Whittier facility.
Those are going to go through that
a 301 H waiver process as well.
So.
This is a good, quick rebuttal.
One more department as will.
Yes.
Is this your last question?
Just a quick comment.
Please.
Thank you. I appreciate that.
I do understand, through the chair,
I understand that, you know, regulatory changes are happening,
and I know that the communities do need to do something.
But how far we turn that dial is the difference
between $10 million and $100 million,
and you understand the impact of those communities.
And then, finally, I think maybe getting that gas line
spurred a fair bank will really help that air quality problem.
But I thank you for your time today.
Thank you.
We love all the support from the committee.
Commissioner Bates, Director Kohler, thank you for your presentation.
We wish you a good weekend.
We'll take a brief at ease and set up for the next presentation where it is.
in House Finance, Friday the 6th of February, 2.55 p.m. here in Juneau. Our
third departmental budget overview is from the Department of Fish and Game.
With us today from The Department are Doug Vincent Lang, Commissioner and
Bonnie Jensen, Administrative Services Director. They are both seated at the
table. Please put yourself on the record. Good afternoon and begin your
presentation. Yeah, good afternoon. My name is Doug Vinson-Lang and I'm the
privilege to be the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and with me is Bonnie Jensen, our administrative services director.
I'd like to echo a lot of what Randy said, you know, this is the legislative process where you define budget sum.
This has always been one of things I really enjoy coming and talking to you about what our budget is and
then having the free form questions and answers afterwards would sometimes have nothing to do with the budget.
about the department as well as what's outlined in our budget request for next year.
Our budget is, our department is founded on constitutional and statutory mandates.
We're kind of unique in the nation for a fishing game agency.
We are one of the only fishing agencies that has a constitutional foundation for sustained
yield management then.
That's pretty special.
That is pretty unique and we take that pretty seriously, making sure that our resources
not only for the current generation, but for future generations.
And from that constitutional mandate falls our functions of the commissioner
in Alaska statutes and then our mission statement.
And I think the most important thing about that mission's statement is that we manage
for sustainability,
but we also manage based on the best interests of people. And that's really
done through the Board of Fish and Board game process. You know, we don't only
But we also manage it in the best interest of people, both economically as well as first
subsistence uses and other things.
Slide three.
So we have three core services in our department management, which is really how we manage
our hunts and fisheries across the state.
We have emergency order authority.
We try to provide that through the Board of Fish and Boarding Game Regulatory Processes.
And we basically try and ensure that we are providing for those opportunities to hunt
and fish across a state."
Informed by that is the stock assessment research component core service of our department
We really ensure sustainability and harvestable surpluses by doing research, you know, we have we've I
Was surprised I became commissioner. We have a Navy we an Air Force
We've we of the Army we had the Marines we all we about every sector out there
We if we flight of aircraft that do most of are surveys for our wildlife populations as well as some of her fish populations
We got the boat, like you see pictured here, we got three or four big vessels that go
on and do marine research.
We just got a brand new one to start a marine, juvenile marine salmon research program as
we're finding out more and more that a lot of the issues facing our salmon populations
have a Marine route as a root cause.
But we do a lotta research, and we also do lots of research on how our Fish and Wildlife
in urban areas do surveys of what people want in terms of wildlife in
urban area and it's a very complex issue you can only imagine how
people feel they want to see bears but when bears suddenly threaten them they
have a whole different opinion so it can be in a
very knife edge but we want know what
people think before we go out and act and then finally we got public service and
public involvement so that's our whole board of fish and
board a game process it is our regulatory process with title 16
We have licensing and permitting, but the education services is something very important
to me.
When I took this job, I think there's a need to make sure that our future generations of
Alaskans have the same care and respect for our Fish and Game resources.
So we spend a considerable amount of money in our department just preparing that next
generation to ensure that they're there.
And one of the things I'd like to point out is this last year we...
we can't take all those opportunities away.
So when we negotiated that agreement with Canada,
we got into a place where we could actually allow some
harvest of animals for culture camps up and down that river
so that generational practices could be passed down from
elders down to the river.
So we were able to do that.
We were going to take a little bit of time,
but we're going back and forth.
We're not going down the road.
down to youth while we're trying to rebuild those stocks.
FY27 budget highlights, we are going to continue
to provide a good return on investment.
I think you guys have all seen this before where we turn
about a $275 million investment, $78 million of that general
funding to return about $15 billion annually.
That was very important to me when I first got this job,
I asked my staff to put that numbers together.
We can't expect the Laskans to pay for our services if we're not returning something back to the state.
So I think we have a pretty good return on investment here.
continued funding for fishery assessment programs with a focus on marine research so marine
research on our technology genetics and Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon so those are three main areas
we were finding out a lot of our salmon resources are impacted by changing ocean conditions
we've invested heavily over the last four or five years and developed a near shore marine
research program that's starting to untangle some of those root causes and what we can do about them
So in our technology is rapidly improving.
We work with the Navy and we are constantly improving
our ability to count salmon and their genetics
as an emerging field.
As we learn more about genetics,
it's kind of one of the double edged swords.
You learn some more and sometimes some of
the answers you find out may not be one
of answers that you want to find outs,
but you can really do a lot with genetics.
And then Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon,
I think the
petition that was submitted to list them under the Nature
Species Act really got us looking looking at that at the
stocks and in the Gulf of Alaska and what can be done to turn
them around. On a good note, we've seen some real good progress
on Gulf Of Alaska. She looks at them and I think in southeast
Alaska, four years ago, five years
ago we were meeting one of six escape goals.
This last year we met five or six. So
Things are starting to turn around.
It also, this budget adds some funding
for increased laboratory costs,
realigns federal authority for wildlife management
and sport fish operations.
It increases the capital improvement project receipt
authority, for our marine mammal programs
and personal services needs.
Who's in the department?
I'm the commissioner, honored to serve that role.
Rachel Baker is a deputy commissioner.
She kind of oversees most of the,
like Secretary of State,
I think issues we have, for instance,
IPHC as well as North Council.
She's right up now in the middle of a council meeting
to discuss Chum Salmon by catch
and what can be done in a troll fish
to reduce the Chums Salmon By catch.
That decision will be made sometime next week.
It'll be talking with her as soon as this meeting adjourns.
Ben Mulligan is kind of like the Secretary of Interior,
does deals more with the Board of Fish and Board
of Game processes as well as he's right now currently overseeing
most of our Title 16 permitting applications
and our commenting on development projects across the state.
Bonnie Jensen is our Administrative Services Director.
She's up here with me.
Joe Feichl, as Feickl Azee are acting legislative liaison,
we are actively.
promoting recruiting for a replacement there, and I think we have one identified.
I'm Patty Sullivan, came to us from the Department of Law, she's our communications director.
And then in terms of our main divisions, Forest Bowers is our acting director of commercial fisheries.
And that's basically all the commercial fishery's in the state, from Southeast Alaska all way up to the North Slope.
And then he also is involved in a lot of those three to two hundred mile fisheries out in the easy
Director Israel Payton is a director of sport fish almost all the sport and personally use fisheries that you're familiar with his managed by that division
Ryan Scott is our director wildlife conservation
They deal with almost. All of the wildlife both game and non-game populations across the state
We're in an act of recruitment now for the executive director of board of games
Our former one retired good for her and so now we're out in that process of recruiting for that job
Art Nelson has taken over the Executive Director of overall for both of those boards
But he serves currently as the Board of Fisheries
director. And then much to thank you guys for running the money. We have been able to secure
George Pappas as the director of subsistence. He comes from the federal subsistence program.
He's got a long history with the Department of Fish and Game, so we're glad to have that.
And again in the habitat section is supervised by Ben Mulligan.
Okay, so the budget structure is kind of aligns with how our leadership is.
We have the statewide support services, which is the commissioner's office, administrative
services.
The board's efficient game, advisory councils, the Exxon Valdez, oil spill trustee council
At one time you guys tried to be moved to DEC but we maintain that and I think we have
that program now running fairly well and it's doing good in the state facilities and maintenance
operations.
The next component is wildlife conservation that has two subsections, the wildlife
conservation unit itself and then hunter education and public shooting ranges as a separate
component.
six major components, basically done regionally across the state, and it also houses the Commercial
Fishering Entry Commission, which is another kind of semi-autonomous unit that's attached
to our budget.
Subsistence research and monitoring has one sub-components, the State Subsystems Research
Unit.
It's important to note that that division is really a research arm.
what's reasonably necessary to take for subsistence and what they need to do in ensuring for
reasonable opportunity to advise them. They're not really managing the fisheries or hunts
for those purposes. The habitat section is primarily our main group that looks out for
making sure that the habitat can sustain our fishing wildlife resources.
They have Title 16 permitting authority in an address waterways.
They also talk with DNR about the Forest Practices Act and a whole variety of other things. All major
development projects in the state have an opportunity for fishing game to
comment on. Sport fisheries has a sport fish component, it also has southeast
hatcheries that was broken out several years ago and then the Anchorage and
Fairbanks hatchers is a separate component.
Slide seven. I'm going to turn now over to Bonnie Jensen to kind of walk
through these next slides. Sure. Mr. Jensen.
For the record, my name is Bonnie Jensen and I'm the administrative services director. Thank you for having us
present a budget
the total request in the FY 27 governor's budget is
274 million
Of that the
largest division is commercial fisheries and
They utilize 34% of that budget there there in a blue
Next we have wildlife conservation in orange
who makes up 27% of her total budget,
and that division is heavily funded using federal
and fishing game funds.
Next we have the sport fish division in purple,
making up 21% over total overall budget.
And like wildlife conservation,
they are heavily federally funded and fish and game fund.
Next, we have statewide support services in green, 13% of our total overall budget and
subsistence in brown and habitat in pink, and both of them are at 3%.
I'm going to keep slide 8 brief, but I wanted to emphasize the substantial footprint.
that Fish and Game maintains across Alaska.
Over the years, we have expanded online outreach through emails,
social media, and the Fish & Game mobile application while still maintaining
in-person services in 33 locations across the state.
If I could. This is an impressive slide, you know.
Other than DOT, I think we
the most offices across the state and it's something that I really consider important.
Whenever we face budget issues, we want to close an office, but those offices in these
areas, these far reaches of Alaska, are critically important to maintain our dialogue with local
people out in this area. So this is an impressive slide and hopefully we can maintain this diversity
This slide provides a historical look back of our budgeted positions with our seasonal positions included in the permanent part-time category.
Fish and Game has 1,445 budget positions in FY27.
The increase in governor's request is due to the de-consolidation of payroll and shared services of Alaska.
I would also like to point out that roughly 40% of our budgeted workforce consists of seasonal staff
and most of those are housed in the two fish divisions commercial and sports and
Those employees are only budgeting to work during in-season management
Okay
Representative Hannon. Thank you coach here, Josephson
My question has to do with those positions going, coming back to departments from Big
Admin.
And for your department, when they took those over to Big Admin eight years ago, and your
commissioner is, I believe, the only commissioner, only OG from the beginning of that consolidation
to now.
And I don't remember if you were there.
How many positions left versus how many are coming
back?
I'm looking to see if departments are adequately going to be staffed.
You, with 40% seasonal, don't have a regular payroll run that is 37 and a half hours a
week, 52 weeks a year.
I assume there's huge variations in specialty.
So hoping that we're staffing you up in a way that you'll have time to prepare for that
major shift.
Director Jensen.
Through the chair, Representative Hannon,
this is actually an area concern of mine,
and I have voiced it with the governor's office and DOA.
They are very aware of it.
I've been promised with at least payroll,
because that's my largest concern.
DOa will help during field season,
because we will have roughly 300 more employees
than we do during the off season in July.
We are also going to do a phased approach.
as well and we are four of in payroll four
of the six positions coming over are filled
and they are currently processing fish and game payroll
so they're knowledgeable of our nuances like hazard pay
in regards to travel and AP, we are getting all those positions back and actually two of the
employees that came over used to work in Fishy Game and so they are coming back to us and all of
those position are filled additionally. We have created a lot of efficiencies within DAS including
in the finance unit so I am very confident that at least in travel in accounts payable we have
if I could. So this was incredibly important to me. When we lost this, we saw error rates
and payroll, and the right of things happened, so when we had given the opportunity, I think
the governor's office recognized that it was time to consider giving some of these functions
back to the departments. We jumped at the chance. And we're looking forward to getting it back.
We're going to figure out with the resources we get it, if we think we are going be able
as least as good as what they're doing and I suspect we're gonna be doing much
better based on the processes we have in place and there is nothing more
important to me in terms of staff retention is getting people paid
correctly on time and trying to ease some of the administrative burden because
when I interview people that are leaving my department there's a pay issue there
but it's more important the administrator burden is just bearing them so that the
more we can do it
ease that administrative burden by having those systems in place at Fish and Game and
making sure they're paid correctly is critically important.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
Slide 10, I believe.
So slide 10 we have a budget comparison between FY 25 actuals, FY 26 management plan,
and the requested budget for FY 27, and in the far right we
Any questions?
Yes, question from representatives.
Thank you, Chair Justin, through the chair to Director Jensen.
Thanks for being here.
Of course, I'm sure it's always a pleasure to see you.
So a couple of things have been happening over the course
of the few years I've been here, your federal kind
of budgeted management plan, and then approved budgets,
as well as your other kind of source of funding there
is fairly short of actuals that end up being spending.
What is going on with that through The Chair?
Director. Through the chair, Representative Stapp, specifically with the divisions of
sport, fish and wildlife conservation, their main funding source is federal and fishing
game fund and those awards are based off of an excise tax and we cannot revert those
that are that is paying for the tax. So we do have extra federal authority to ensure we
do not revert funds. And it also allows the divisions the opportunity to apply for competitive
awards if any like come up. Um, so that's in terms of those two divisions and then commercial
They just have a extra federal authority in order to apply for competitive awards and
the same with subsistence and habitat.
A quick follow-up.
Representative Staff.
Yep.
Thank you.
Go to the chair to director.
If I could.
Okay.
I think that's the key of that was we had a period of time there where federal excise
taxes were coming in higher than we thought and we were very close to reverting those
funds back.
get caught in the point where we're having to revert funds.
So I think we are equaling that out now.
Yeah.
Red Stem.
Thank you, Coach, and Justin, through the chair and his director.
Thank You, Commissioner, that totally makes sense
on the federal receipt authority.
So it makes that we wouldn't want to have,
even if it's kind of hollow receipt of authority,
because we want make sure we capture all that.
Specifically, on other funds, is that designated program
receipts or interagency receipt
authority happening there through this year?
Through the chair, representative staff.
So those awards actually do have a 25% match component,
and they use Fish and Game funds, which is another.
Makes complete sense, last vault, Mr. Coacher.
Yes, follow-up.
Thank you.
Regarding your general funds.
Thank for always being so close to your actuals
and budget amounts.
We don't see that quite often, so I
appreciate that from your guys' department.
Thanks.
OK, slide 11.
So, I'm going to keep this slide brief, but I wanted to show the allocation of UGF across
all agencies and point out that phishing game is at 1.6 percent.
Okay.
Slide 12.
Federal funding being our largest funding source by 0.4%,
we're at 34.2, and based on FY 25 actuals,
the Pittman Robertson Award in the Division
of Wildlife Conservation made up 43% of this,
while the Dingle Johnson Award
in The Division of Sportfish was 14%,
and the remaining 43 were non-competitive
and competitive awards, including the Pacific Salmon Treaty.
And I did want to point out those two awards because the commissioner is going to talk
about them in the next two slides.
Our next funding source is Other, which makes up 33.8 percent, and that's mainly fishing
game fund which is mostly revenue from the sales of fishing and hunting licenses.
It also contains statutory designated program receipt authority and interagency receipt
or smallest funding source or no right or
Third largest funding sources unrestricted general fund, which makes up 28% of our budget
and
then our smallest is
designated general funds which includes
commercial fisheries entry commission receipts
commercial crew license revenue and test fish receipts
Okay
slide 13
So this is Doug Vince-Ling again.
So we just spent a little bit of time talking about federal Pittman-Robertson funds.
So when Congress became concerned
that there wasn't enough money going into wildlife restoration across the country,
they developed two programs. One was a license,
a tax on firearms, and another was the tax-on fishing license gears.
And that basically was put into a fund
Peter and Robertson fund on the PR side
and the Dingle Johnson fund and on
the other side.
And there was a requirement in both
of those cases that if the state
was going to apply for that money
and it was apportioned out by geography
so we are always on max state and population size.
And you had to provide a dedicated source of funding.
So we have one of the few dedicated funding sources
in the State and that's the sales,
licensed sales of hunting licenses
and sport fishing licenses.
that has to be used to basically match these funds.
And we've got a constitutional amendment
that the voters passed to designate that one,
again, one of the few designated funds in the state.
So in wildlife, the arena, this is basically given
to deal with wildlife management across the State.
We also recognizing that a lot of these
funds are coming from sale of firearms and ammunition.
We can build shooting ranges and a variety
of other things across The State on the fishing side.
We can use it to manage and research on sport fisheries.
We do public education on our water resources.
And we really also use them to to
manage our two hatchery programs to provide
a lot of sport fishing opportunity in area lakes
and other things.
But this really funds our wildlife division
and our sport fish division.
It is the primary source of funding, it's fairly stable.
We had a real big bump up in the PR funds when Congress or
when people thought America that they were going to lose their right to buy a gun.
But that seems to be leveling off now, but that stable funding source is really fundamentally
kept those two divisions from being susceptible to changes in UGF funding.
questions, two of them, from Representative Jimmy,
then Bynum were on slide 15.
Representative Jimmie.
Thank you, co-chair Foster.
I'm so sorry, but I am gonna have to ask you guys
to go back to page 12, and I just had a quick question.
Slide 12.
With the budget,
how would it look if you were to include
funds from the commercial fisheries?
So there's a through the chair there there is a
It's attacks on commercial fish landings and two percent half that tax goes back to local communities and half goes into the general fund
That's up to you to appropriate where that money goes if it comes back into general fun
But right now that's not incorporated into our budget directly
But it is probably indirectly given to us through to the General Fund receipts we get back from the from from legislature and the governor's budget
Okay, thank you
Represent by them. Thank you, co-chair justice and through the chair
I was just hoping you might comment really quick you talked a little bit about fishing licenses and fees that we get from that
There's been legislation that's went through. The body here recently that talks a bit
About fishing game and those things and I hear a lot from constituents about fees and there's just I believe misconception that
We can put these additional fees on non-resident licenses
the legality of what we need to do with a collection of fees for licenses.
Yeah, so when we issue a license, you can have a differential fee between residents and non-residents,
but the Carlson case says you have to demonstrate that that additional fee is necessary to cover
the state costs associated with them participating in those fisheries. So I think right now it's
about a three to one difference, but you couldn't go 10 to 1 without justifying that fee differential.
The other thing on fees is that the legislature basically put a surcharge on some of these
hunting and fishing licenses in the past, and that surcharges was used to build two
sportfish hatcheries, one in Fairbanks and one on Anchorage.
And, you know, it was a fee that mostly was paid for by non-residents because they paid
the same sur charge and it's a three to one ratio, but those sur charges allowed us to
money coming into them and it was a unique way to do that so I know there's other groups that
are now looking at these surcharges as ways to deal with you know economic feasibility studies
right by the things. Thank you. Okay I think we were on 15.
Yeah but I talked about the match of the funds the version but yeah okay 16. Director.
For the record, Bonnie Jensen.
This slide shows the FY26 governor's requested budget
and some changes that were made during the legislative process.
Last year, the Division of Commercial Fisheries
requested 716,000 of unrestricted general fund
to restore funding that was cut in FY25 for surveys
The legislature reduced this down to 400,000, and due to the reduction, the division was
not able to move forward with the Sandy River Rear Project,
the Togiak Herring Project and the Prince William Sound Troll Survey,
and The Lower Yukon Test Fishery was reduced.
So you're talking about the first line, there were three or four impacts,
and you've just described them, of the legislature's not enacting the full budget.
Are you taking a second bite of the apple are you seeking the the full fund?
To cover those programs in f4 27 co-chair Josephson due to the current
fiscal climate
We determine that
It's not a priority
Okay, all right and take us to line two
All right, in the same division, commercial fisheries,
there was a request for 450,000 of unrestricted general fund
for maintenance to fund their six large vessels,
five aircraft, and smaller vessels and other equipment
that the division has.
The legislature cut this in half by 225, 000,
and this did have a noticeable impact on the Division.
The research special kestrel is currently in dry dock undergoing routine maintenance.
And all of the available UGF funds are going towards that shipyard visit.
It's estimated to cost about 1.3 million.
The Research Special Medea that is docked here in Juneau was supposed to go into maintenance
this winter for a ship yard visit, but due to budgetary constraints,
we were not able to move forward with that.
Okay. I mean, do you used a word there noticeable or impactful, but again, not seeking any additional
dollars? Chair Josephson, the Medea can operate in FY 27. So we, due to the state of the fiscal
situation, we decided it was not a priority. But there was a second vessel, right? The
Which is in dried art right now. Okay, represent Bynum. Thank you coach
I just sent through the chair is that shipyard work? Is that being performed in Alaska or elsewhere?
Right and also the planned work
Was that going to be planned that that work would be performed on Alaska, or else where?
director
Through the Chair representative BYNAM. I would have to look and see we go out to bed and we
We obtain the lowest better
So I'm not sure if that work is in Alaska or Canada.
Thank you.
So through the chair, we always look
to have this work done in the Alaska.
But sometimes the cost is so differential
that given the deferred maintenance budget we have,
we'll have to go with the lowest bidder.
But we hours look to that worked on if we can at all,
even if it's at an increased cost,
unless it goes over and try to do it in Alaskan.
Thank for that, and I'll follow up, Mr. Chair,
So, let's go to the next line, Director, Groundfish Project.
So in the same division, commercial fisheries, they were seeking 250,000 in general funds
and 50,00 in General Fund Match to maintain the Ground Fish Project for assessments and
Project used to be funded entirely by a federal award and on test fish receipts, but the price of stable fish
The X-Fecil value has decreased over the years and the federal ward has decrease as well. So this was to supplement that
The legislature reduced it by 100,000 UGF
And due to that change they left a fish and wildlife technician position vacant
And activities were scaled back and they prioritized the core functions and critical assessments
and fishery management obligations.
Additionally, the yellow rockfish remote operated vehicle survey and stable fish mark capture stock assessment survey were not conducted.
Okay, and I might just add that we're looking for federal funding to fill up this gap in this area in Southeast Alaska
But we did some reduced surveys, but we still got the information necessary to sustainably manage these fisheries
Okay
Representative Hannon and Biden. Thank you, co-chair justice and commissioner
When that survey on rockfish wasn't able to continue
Was did the Board of Fish have to reduce the allocation of harvest limits on it?
or were they, yeah.
Through the chair, just the opposite.
I think the information we had collected,
substantiated information, the LY rockfish
were actually increasing.
I mean, I increase some opportunities
for the charter board industry on LLY rock fish.
So.
Okay.
Represent by it.
Thank you, Coach, your justice and through the Chair.
We know that invasive species, there's
a
A big concern right now in our fisheries, and I'm not talking about reintroduced species like sea otters and the devastation they're having on our near shore invader bridge fisheries but specifically green crab is a big issue that's coming into the state.
evaluating that and trying to come up with some solutions that we might have and do you have the
revenue or correction? Do you the resources necessary in your budget to be able to accommodate that
priority? Yeah, through the chair. So green crab is a huge issue. It's being introduced, it's
in the world has yet figured out how to control that population you can kind of
fish it down but you
can't really ever get to a point of eliminating it so if you take if
you get off of it for a little while it still continues so right now we're in
a monitoring stage we were trying to figure out what's doing to it do a
little bit of research to
figure on how we can tackle the the spread of
it but right
now i don't think
Additional resources is going to help us control green crab
I we were working with metla catla and other groups just to try to figure out a strategy moving forward
We got that adequately funded
Thank you in terms of stopping it. It's kind of like pike and pikin the matsu valley.
It is incredibly hard to stop pikes from
You can kill 20,000 and they'll be back in a year
Appreciate that commissioner through the chair and note we'll continue that work
to see what we can do to help you guys as well.
Thank you.
Representative Hannon.
Thank You, co-chair Josephson.
I wanted to just go back and sort of underscore
when I asked you about the yellow eye
because I think people frequently mistake
but these are under commercial fisheries.
There do, that's where the scientists' stock assessment
are being funded through
But the results are often that sport fisheries get allocations because of it.
So sometimes people postulate that commercial fisheries stop sport
fisheries from happen, but the underlying management.
Commercial fisheries is where the science and data to allow sport
fisheries to open, to close, for bag limits to be set generally benefit.
You know, I think we don't always understand that those are symbiotic relationships through the chair
This is one of those few species where we have really symbotic relationships between sport fish and and commercial fisheries
We have a joint rockfish team between the two divisions and both
Both divisions benefit both fisheries benefited by the new assessments
We were facing a period where were gonna have to restrain
halibut fisheries because yellow-eyed rockfish by catch limits being
exceeded that those fisheries can now continue to catch halobut and in the
recreational site we can provide some opportunity especially in this time
when king salmon abundance with little ais from the
salmon tree you're happening we could provide them opportunity for
for rock fish in those fishery so
represent tomah chef ski thank you co-chair joseon through the chair
so
Commercial, everyone's getting a good amount of fish.
You talked about earlier,
a marine root cause for the salmon declines.
I know that Yukon River is not being able to fish,
their fish runs.
So can you expand a little bit more
on the marine route cause with those salmon decline?
Have you figured something out?
Well.
So we instituted a marine science program about six years ago.
It was one of the things I figured we needed to do more research on.
And we're finding out that that first month to two months out of sea
really fundamentally side whether those salmon are going to survive
and return as adults to these river systems.
We haven't figured out exactly why,
but we are getting closer to figure out it may be a diet related issues,
what I'm understanding talking to our scientists.
So we've expanded that work now into the Southern Bering Sea
as well as into The Gulf of Alaska.
And we're trying to piece together
how what the root cause of that first two or three months
out at sea is causing the reduced survival moving forward.
But I always liken to somebody, they say,
so why are King salmon numbers so low?
Well, King Salmon is a cold blooded animal.
You know, it's swimming out in the ocean.
The ocean's warmer, so it was expanding more energy.
So it is kind of on this treadmill out
in ocean, but as the Ocean warms up,
the food sources that salmon are eating out there,
the King salmon eating are becoming less nutritious.
When it colders, more nutritious,
so now you've got an animal that's on a treadmill
eating less than nutritious fish.
They start losing weight, we're seeing that
down the day that we are seeing.
The salmon that are coming back to a river is smaller.
And they're coming back younger, so they are coming
back before they've always come back in the past which is all
telling us that the ocean is not a good place to be.
If there was a place that they would be out there
longer, they'd be grown and they come
back later.
So we don't really understand what the cause of that.
There's a belief that it might be hatchery competition out
there.
But we haven't seen significant overlap with King
Salmon and Pink and Chum Salmon on the
The internationally, you're the salmon researcher,
some of the new Becky research going on.
So, we're trying to unravel it,
but we clearly have evidence to suggest
that salmon are coming back smaller and younger at age,
which is indicating an ocean condition.
And follow-up.
Follow-ups.
Thank you for that.
And also, there's a lot of folks talking about trawling
and banning trolling.
And what are you hearing and what is the division looking to utilize its resources to make sure
that those fish runs come back and is trawling doing a lot of damage to our sea floors?
So there's two questions I'm trawing.
One is what's the by catch in the trawl industry?
We have really good numbers on bycatch in The Bering Sea, which is biggest traawl fisheries
in our state.
We know exactly the numbers of fish that are being taken.
from genetic sampling what the stock composition of those are.
I'm confident that with the steps we took already on shnook salmon in the Bering Sea
in terms of by catch cap reductions and also the incentive program to avoid them,
that's not the root cause of the concerns with shnooke salmon into the Yukon River.
Should we do more?
Certainly we should do a more, but even if you eliminated it,
it wouldn't result in those stocks making excapement goals.
which on salmon we're going to be taking that next step at this council meeting this next week.
We're gonna be taken some significant efforts that probably gonna significant impact our our CDQ fisheries which are critically important to those coastal communities.
The second issue though is is how much bottom contact is that gear taking?
Through the council, we've actually partnered with National Marine Fisheries Service.
We are doing an invent with industry. We doing inventory of that.
The council is looking to ban those, some of those more impactful gears and get the
less impactable gear as legal gear for those trial fisheries.
And number two, we're finding out through very university research projects, how that
gear is fished is critically important.
If we fish the clean gear a little bit differently and mandate that, you can reduce the bottom
impact by up to 70 percent.
aspects of trawling as well as the bottom contact aspects
of trolling thank you and one follow-up follow up so earlier
in the presentation you said you
your department turns $275 million into $15 billion.
I think we may have just found our budget woes solution.
Where is that $1 billion actually go?
We'll get you the numbers.
We have it broke down by sport, fish, wildlife,
wildlife viewing, commercial fisheries, the right of things.
It's all basically how that money gets filtered through our economy moving forward.
But one of the things I'm most proud of as commissioners, when COVID hit,
We operated our commercial fisheries and our sport fisheries across the state that
Provided much needed economic stability to our communities
Just think what we would be like right now if we hadn't had any fishing in all through all throughout Alaska during those COVID years and other states
Close their fisheries down. So I'm pretty proud that we kept those fisheries alive and kept the economic benefits
Miss Jensen we just have a couple minutes
Certainly, I have a couple of minutes.
You were on slide 16, second of the last line.
Could you quickly get through that
and the next couple slides, of course?
Coach Eric Dostin, yes I can.
So.
The second to last item in commercial fisheries, the Senate added 200,000 in statutory designated program received authority.
And I just want to make note because the governor did veto this item.
But the division is still moving forward with the agreement with The Alaska Salmon Alliance.
Okay.
The last is in the Division of Sport Fish, and it was 100,00 federal.
100,000 fishing game fund authority for the Anchorage and Fairbanks hatcheries. This was to supplement
the need for increasing prices in heating oil, which actually decreased. So there was no impact.
Representative Jimmy, do you have a question?
Yes, thank you Commissioner. Thank you, co-chair Josephson. I just wanted to
Have a the public have a better better clear understanding of the troweling when you say
The CDQ you mentioned the CDq and how important is for Western Alaska. It is through one of our regional
fisheries
coastal village regional fund? Yes, they do trow. And then also there are trows from lower 48 that you spoke of that there needs to be a study of what they're using and how they are using what kind of next they
are are used in. I just wanted to point out the fact that Coastal Village Regional Fund has their own rules and regulations that they
keep themselves accountable and I'm thankful for Coastal Village Region Fund because they do
support our district with student work programs, fuel expenses in winter, programs for people in
our villages, they provide jobs. I just wanted to point out the fact that CVF Coastal village
standards as
Other trolley companies are so thank you so much
comment well, I'll just come back that
Representative is exactly correct the most successful programs. We have to eliminate by catcher the incentive programs working with the
Fishering fishing industry if you ask fishermen I
Can decide how best to minimize by catch, but I'm not a fisherman. I don't the grounds. It's like
We're going to a subsistence fishermen.
We are going work with the subsistence fisherman if we have to figure out how to manage our
fisheries.
We have work to work fishing groups to do it.
They are the experts.
But at the same time, in all of our programs, we are a performance standard that is expected
to meet.
If you don't meet the performance standards, there is a penalty associated with it, so
that has the benefits of working with industry and those incentive programs but make sure
that they don�t go over their limits that have long-term conservation impacts.
Okay, let's look at slide 17
For the record Bonnie Jensen
in the division this slide shows or
FY 27 operating budget changes in The Governor's request in
The division of commercial fisheries they're asking for a fifty
Thousand dollar increase to their fishing game fund authority for their two labs here in Juneau and
Then in wildlife conservation and sport fish they are just looking
at an alignment to some of their authority to fit their needs and in my division the
division of administrative services I'm asking for a 500,000 increase in statutory designated
program receipt to cover department wide operational costs and then a 115, 000 increase
same as wildlife conservation to cover personal service expenditures
at posted capital projects.
I'm also requesting to delete a position
that the legislature added in FY 25.
This position is vacant.
I've never filled it and we do not have the need for it.
And then our yearly request in the commissioner's office
for a multi-year operating award for fishery disaster projects
So, Representative Jimmy, you'll see these in the Fisheries Committee, and then the
Committee can take up any other issue it wants to.
All right.
So we'll look at slide 18.
Yeah.
I'm not going to go through this in great detail, but I've been commissioner now for
seven years and I'd like to look back at what we've accomplished them.
You know, we have done a lot in community engagement.
We now have the community subsistence information system.
ADF and G mobile app is up and running.
We have increased on online outreach.
We're taking the internet seriously and we're trying to figure
out how to make that work.
We've increased public access.
You know, we basically used a lot of those PR funds
that we were in near reverting.
put public access and shooting ranges in place.
We are starting to enter agreement with the Matsu Valley
to deal with Jonesville area, which is kind of a public safety
issue up there.
So we're going to help them build a shooting range.
State of defense, we've been trying
to make sure that we have the best available science
and informed decisions.
We use money, basically, to making sure
upcoming decision by National Ministry of Service on Gulf of Alaska,
SHNUC salmon is going to be based on, again, the best available science.
We continue to have a good economic return on investment.
You know, we've seen increased productivity, as I said,
in our Gulf Alaska SHnUC Salmon Stocks.
We've put a research program in place for the Alaska Marine Science Program,
the Marine Salmon Program.
We have big comprehensive Gulf for Alaska
done a lot in western Alaska in fresh water.
I think our budget now is through your guys funding,
we put millions of dollars in it unraveling that.
We have new sonar programs, we have
new study to get a bonus in the UConn River system.
We've a better understanding what's happening in
freshwater in Ucoln than we ever had before.
We acquired a new research vessel to
fund our science program through a donation from.
from one of the phishing processors groups.
So we've done a lot over the last seven years,
and I think we really kind of improved our science aspects
and really improved the ability to work with user groups,
and last of all is the money you gave us last year
to do more work
with Hunter Education is really paying off.
We're seeing new enthusiasm by young people
to get out hunting.
With that, we'll close.
You've had a fair amount of litigation in your department. Yeah, how is that paid for?
so
We're I think that's paid further department of law remember the one piece of litigation that we had that was
We were still trying to figure this one out. We got sued by the federal government on the cusca cum river
So we were the defendants and now I thing there's a question as to whether we need to pay something back for being
Defending our ourselves and that lawsuit. I guess being worked out with the department law right now
what our responsibility may or may not be as a state to pay for something that we weren't the active litigant on.
We have some litigation I think you're talking about with the IM programs.
That was largely an issue related to, it wasn't an unconstitutionalality of the program,
it was just how the administrative record was built.
It was determined to be in error.
So we've gone back and fixed that.
We talked to the Department of Law just recently.
We're trying to figure out now what,
whether we're going to appeal those costs associated
with some of those lawsuits.
But the department of law charges you for services, correct?
For the attorney services but not necessarily
for the payment of fees associated with court rulings.
Okay, but how do you, through what division do
you pay your department law bills, so to speak?
Oh, I think it's paid through the divisions, correct.
I, co-chair Josephson, yes, we do have multiple RSA's
with the Department of Law.
Okay.
All right.
And we can get you copies of those if you want them.
Yeah, actually I would like that.
That would be great.
All Right,
I want to thank the commissioner and director
We've had a very comprehensive hearing today.
It concludes our business.
Our next house finance committee meeting is scheduled
for Monday, February 9th at 1.30.
At that meeting, we will hear guide house present
on its Medicaid rate review study.
I know this is something you're all riveted to hear about.
It is interesting to those of us who are involved
in that work.
putting up with me, co-chair, Josephson, I just want to I forgot to thank you for being
of your presentation. It's been a long day. But also mostly I want
to think you, for what you've done for District 38 when you have opened
Moose hunting season with the impact of the storm haylong people lost a lot of their subsistence
food and I Just want thank
you For opening a hundred tags of moose and giving back to the community in that way and
All right with that thank you for that we will adjourn this meeting house finance committee at 347 we're adjourned